The Simplest Ways to Make the Best of Project Discovery Proposals

After putting in an insane amount of time and work on a discovery proposal, you don’t want to hear a “no”.

To convert your prospects into clients, your proposal needs a high-level understanding of the client’s business, takes the guesswork out of things, and most importantly focuses on the problems they are facing or may face in near future.

This blog will shed light on factors essential for designing an effective proposal and also the basic concepts of the software project discovery phase.

Similar to what discovery means for a layman, in business, it loosely translates to gathering and analyzing the information about a new product/software to help understand its goals, vision, scope, limitations, usage by involving key stakeholders. It helps understand the needs of the business upfront, challenges associated, and budgeting.

A typical agile phased out project enormously considers the discovery phase as a predominant step before moving further into the development of the project.

Here are the reasons why discovery is important-

Once client/business leaders agreed for the discovery phase, you can consider these pointers to include in your proposal too, and tweak it, if required.

The section below covers the sample of the discovery proposal which can be shared with the client covering use case, prerequisites, workflow, team, outcome, etc

We must understand what are the key challenges/problems which the client is willing to resolve. For instance, this sample proposal is for the use-case when the client is-

Here is the complete discovery process workflow-

*R&R — Roles & Responsibilities

*SPOC — Single Point Of Contact

*PO — Product Owner

Before discovery starts, it’s important to list down all prerequisites so that the discovery period can be more effective and fruitful. Here are a few instances of prerequisites-

It is important to define discovery outcomes upfront to set the right expectation with the business owners. Here is how you can do it effectively-

At the beginning of the venture, it is important to identify key risks, assumptions, issues, and dependency which could impact the discovery deliverables. Refer to the risk example below-

Identify the right skilled people who are proficient in performing discoveries based on the discovery type. Every team member has defined roles and responsibilities to provide clarity, alignment, and set the right expectation upfront.

Here is the R&R of the Product Owner from the client-side-

Based on the discovery scope, team composition, and duration we arrive at the discovery budget. It is important to include terms and conditions to clarify details like payment terms. This will make sure that the client is fully informed and there’ll be no surprises down the road.

Here is the sample template of the costing-

Note: In case of fixed cost discovery no break up is required, we can simply put the total cost

A discovery phase is all that counts to help you lead a project successfully. You might find it a hassle but bear in mind that it is an investment.

Once the discovery phase gets over and the results and the proposal look propitious, it’ll be time to design your product, build your MVP, and test it.

However, do run trial operations to test and perfect your proposal seeing what works the best for you.

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